Oh look, the weather is miserable again.

I suppose I could stay in Shaqu. There's no reason to not stay in Shaqu other than there being no reason to stay in Shaqu. And maybe, if I'm lucky, the sunlight that the weather report keeps promising me will happen, will actually happen.

It doesn't though.

I continue to ride south along the banks of the Minjiang River, sometimes on the levee trail, sometimes on paved roads nearby. It's flat and not very interesting and I don't know if it's because it's late November, because I've been on the road too long, or because this part of Sichuan just isn't very interesting.

Wenjing Township, where I stop for a late brunch, is a nice old town that hasn't been touristified at all. Seeing the different places, few though they are, that are old and crumbling and mostly untouched (or at least only roughly repaired), there is so much incredible variation in the different designs and styles and patterns that when I finally end up again in a cleaned up pretty place I'm totally uninterested in any of the new old stone work and wood carvings. One turtle dragon or crouching monkey as the plinth for a wooden column is really cool. Seeing the same turtle dragon four times on one street, however, not so very cool.

I'd kind of figured I was going to go all the way down to Pengxi Town before crossing the Minjiang and starting to go north by northeast again but AMap tells me there's a ferry crossing at Qinglong and it's been ages and ages and ages since I took a random ferry in China. Last year, in Zhejiang and Anhui and Jiangxi and other flat places full of water I spent must have gone to a dozen or more places with names like Fordmarket City (津市市) which, just like Harper's Ferry in Maryland, all had bridges.

But the ferry crossing in Qinglong has been closed for the past four months now. Instead, everyone is crossing on the closed train bridge which runs alongside the not closed train bridge. I think it silly that there's a sign specifically prohibiting cars or motorized three wheelers from using the railroad bridge as someone would have to be a right moron to think that's a good idea but, as I come off the bridge, there's a car which has trapped itself in the rail gravel and is making all sorts of nasty hot engine smells as it spins its tires.

Once I'm on the other side of the water, it's surprisingly not flat for it still being the kind of flat countryside that doesn't show up as even the slightest shading on the topo map and I frequently find myself having to shift down into the granny gear to slowly ooze my way up short but steep hills.

Huanglongxi is one of those particularly Disneyfied Olde Towns. I actually manage to, quite accidentally, stumble across a woven bamboo and plaster building with DANGEROUS BUILDING "Don't Stand Close" signs on it that seems to have been unilaterally declared the local ebike parking spot but, other than that, there is absolutely nothing that looks the slightest bit actually old when you've got the experience of actual old places to compare it to. Of course, actual old places don't have the options with food and drink and snack and kitsch the way a ye olde place does so it's obvious why this would be of more interest to the average visitor.

Practically every other building (or maybe every third building) is a restaurant and guesthouse but none of them (not even the ones I specifically go to take a look at because they've got high reviews) particularly strike my fancy until the seventh or eight person to shout at me "hey, you looking for a place to stay?" because, I don't know, it just looks more welcoming in some indefinable way.

At least, that is, until I insist that I can be registered with a passport.